Bangla

"There she goes again!"

If that is what you think just move on to something else because right now I am going to rant my heart out. I am going to write and write and shamelessly express how much of a clannist I am. I am going to tell you how  good I feel to be a bengali and how much of self inflicted pain I am in when I have left my home.

I am going to rant about how miserable I feel when I have to say that there is nothing left in Bengal. How terrible it feels to think that going back home, to Kolkata might just as well mean not being able to live my dreams. I am going to rant about all of that.   

Having lived in Bengal for the good 20 years of my life I have learned to believe that I am blessed with a culture that is rich and dynamic. I have been customized to a mind set where my support for communism is independent of my vote for the Left Front. I am inherently political and eternally cultural. 

I am. I can not help it.

I can not help but boast of the fact that the leading poet of our country Gulzar Saab says that he married a bengali so that he could learn the language. I can not help but feel privileged that I can choose not to read anything in any other language than bengali and still not be able to read everything even if I read all my life. Tell me how do I suppress my happiness when I find out that without even having to look for them I have a collection of two thousand brilliant songs to refer to at every moment I need. I can not stop feeling that rising enthusiasm in me when I read the poetry of a young bengali poet who writes not because he wants to become a poet but because he feels that is the way to express.

Yeah yeah! You have heard all this before. And that is the best part because I share this feeling with most of the bengalis out there.

So what if we are lazy asses? So what if it took us 35 long years to realize that something is wrong with our government? So what if even after knowing that the new government is as bad or worse we will keep on saying 'Its just her second year in power.'? So what if we are ready to give another 35 years for her to cause some more damage? We still have a Binayak Sen.

We are a race where we love to live by examples. One Rabindranath Tagore and the entire community turned poet. One Sourav Ganguly and one can find cricket coaching camps right left and center. One Sushmita Sen and the all bengali ladies are beauty queens even without trying.

We love noodles and rock music but trust me at the end of the day we all are more than proud that wherever we go, to any part of the country or the world we shall always find a 'bong' too happy to discuss the latest Rituparno film.

p.s: This post is not intended to hurt any sentiments of any other culture or race. Its just that I am too much of a bengali. :D